On Gore's Other Emotional Speech...
"Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it! I've hoed it! I've dug in it! I've sprayed it! I've chopped it! I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it!"
--Vice President Al Gore, during the 1988 campaign beseeching North
Carolina's tobacco farmers to support his quest for the presidency.
He made this speech four years after his sister's death. Washington
Times, July 9, 1996. Page A16.
[Editor's Note: This is repeated from Quotes of the Week - 7/14/96]
On Cheers for Lake County...
"Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officials say Lake and Koochiching counties missed the Wednesday state-imposed deadline for removing the word 'squaw' from names of geographic features. Lake County proposed renaming Squaw Creek and Squaw Bay to 'Politically Correct Creek' and 'Politically Correct Bay.' State officials said no."
--Paul Leavitt, in USA Today, August 2, 1996. Posted as the Outrage du Jour
for August 3, 1996.
On Intolerance...
"After scant attention Sunday, Democratic suppression of abortion debate fell completely off TV screens. In all of Monday's prime-time coverage, no reporter or anchor raised the topic, though Bob Casey, the pro-life former governor of Pennsylvania, gave a speech at another Chicago location on the party's intolerance."
--Media Research Center, reporting in a special analysis of television
network convention coverage. Washington Times, August 28, 1996.
On Smelling Perjury...
"McLarty said that the first lady was very upset and believed the matter required further thought and that the president should not yet be told. She said they should have a coherent position and should have decided what to do before they told the president."
--Notes of associate White House counsel, Miriam Nemetz, taken in July 1995.
The notes were released as part of some 2000 documents requested by
congressional oversight committees. At best this undercuts previous White
House claims that the first lady had no role in the discussions of the Foster
suicide letter. At worst, they smack of obstruction of justice. Washington
Times, August 30, 1996. Page A22.
On Leading By Example...
"Well, as the senior public health official of the government, we think it's a bad idea for him to be chewing on a cigar. But I understand that both his wife and his daughter have made it even clearer to him. So I think we'll leave it at that."
--Donna E. Shalala, secretary of health and human services, concerning a
well-publicized photo of the president smoking a cigar while playing golf,
just days before announcing his crack down on the tobacco industry.
Washington Times, August 28, 1996. Inside the Beltway.
On Being Succinct...
"Vote Democrat -- It Beats Working."
--Bumper sticker seen on a pickup truck in Calvert County.
Washington Times, August 28, 1996. Inside the Beltway.
On the Other Victim of Abortion...
"One out of four women who aborts has problems with future pregnancies, including sterility. And 94 percent of women admit negative psychological effects following abortion, including self-destructive tendencies such as drug or alcohol abuse, suicide attempts, eating disorders, workaholism, or child abuse. (Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, child abuse has risen 1,112 percent!)"
--Carol Everett, from the Life Network in Austin, Texas. From an article
in "Today's Christian Woman" (September/October 1996). The article also
discussed the study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute which
found that having an abortion raised a woman's risk of contracting breast
cancer 50 percent on average.
On Being Hypocritical...
"From 1987 to 1996, the tobacco lobby has contributed $2,041,071 to Democratic candidates and $2,037,810 to Republican candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, whic used FEC data."
--Washington Times, 8/30/96. Page A10.
On Scandal Number 746...
"One night he had to call the president and after a few words he motioned for me to sit on the sofa close to him. He held the receiver between us and was giggling and pointing for me to listen in."
--Sherry Rowlands, the prostitute in the Dick Morris scandal, concerning her
escapades with the president's chief adviser. Mr. Morris is married.
Washington Times, August 30, 1996. Page A12.
On the Slippery Slope of Liberalism...
"Above [the people] stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, forsees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living......."
--Alexis de Tocqueville, on the spread of bureaucracy.
[Editor's Note: Sorry, I can't find the source for this one.]